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StillnessArt fact

Byzantine church mosaics were made of thousands of small glass tiles with gold leaf sealed inside, set at slightly different angles so that candle and lamplight would catch them and the walls would shimmer as you moved.

Byzantine art (Ravenna mosaics)

ArtHistory

The story behind the card

Each small piece is called a tessera. To make a gold one, craftsmen laid a thin sheet of gold leaf on glass and covered it with another thin layer of glass, so the gold was sealed in and protected from wear. The most famous surviving examples are in the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy, consecrated in 547, where mosaics show the emperor Justinian I and the empress Theodora with their courts. San Vitale is one of eight early Christian buildings in Ravenna on UNESCO's World Heritage List. In Istanbul, the mosaics of Hagia Sophia and of the Chora Church, known in Turkish as Kariye, use the same gold-glass technique.

Türkçe oku
Bizans kiliselerinin mozaikleri, içine altın varak gömülmüş binlerce küçük cam parçasından yapılırdı. Ustalar bu parçaları birbirinden biraz farklı açılarla yerleştirirdi; böylece parçalar mum ve kandil ışığını yakalar, siz yürüdükçe duvarlar ışıldardı.

Mozaiği oluşturan her küçük parçaya tessera denir. Altın bir tessera yapmak için ustalar camın üstüne ince bir altın varak serer, üstünü de ince bir cam tabakasıyla örterdi; böylece altın camın içinde kalır, aşınmazdı. Günümüze ulaşan en ünlü örnekler, İtalya'nın Ravenna kentinde 547'de kutsanan San Vitale Bazilikası'ndadır; buradaki mozaikler İmparator I. Justinianus'u ve İmparatoriçe Theodora'yı saray halkıyla birlikte gösterir. San Vitale, Ravenna'nın UNESCO Dünya Mirası Listesi'ndeki sekiz erken dönem Hristiyan yapısından biridir. İstanbul'da Ayasofya'nın ve Kariye'nin (Khora Kilisesi) mozaiklerinde de aynı altınlı cam tekniği kullanılmıştır.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Byzantine art
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